Coffee is a brewed beverage formed by passing heated water through roasted coffee beans and is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world. A wide variety of methods and related brewing apparatus exist to brew coffee and are selected by consumers based upon their particular characteristics including ease of brewing, amounts to be brewed and strength/taste of the brewed coffee. When brewing multiple cups or other large volumes, it is common to use equipment utilizing drip or percolating techniques. While percolating or drip style equipment is extremely popular, many coffee aficionados prefer the taste of coffee wherein the servings are individually prepared immediately prior to consumption.
One popular technique for brewing individual servings of coffee is through the utilization of a French Press. The French Press generally consists of a cylindrical chamber into which coffee grounds and heated water are added. A lid is placed over the chamber and a plunger directs a permanent filter downward and through the chamber to physically separate spent coffee grounds from the now freshly brewed coffee. Brewed coffee prepared with a French Press is generally stronger, thicker and includes more sediment than coffee prepared with traditional drip or percolating brewers. It would be advantageous to further improved upon the French press design to provide similar ease of preparation with individual servings while also providing for sediment removal in line with that provided by traditional drip and percolating brew methods.
A more recent development in the area of single cup brewing techniques has been to utilize individual pods capable of brewing individual servings. These pods can include prepackaged pods, such as, for example, K-Cups® available from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters of Waterbury, Vt. or reusable/refillable pods such as those available from Solofill, LLC of Houston, Tex. Generally, these pods are utilized in self-contained machines sold under brand names such as, for example, Keurig® and Mr. Coffee® and are generally capable of performing various brewing operations including heating water, pressurizing the heated water and directing the heated water into and out of the individual pods for brewing individual servings at the touch of a button and as a user waits. In addition to these self-contained machines, a hand-operated version requiring additional user intervention is available as the My French-Press® from Cafejo® of Santa Ana, Calif. and is described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0260806A1.